dollsorwhatever

[dollsorwhatever]

Artist: Takai Biki of the doujinshi circle Bousou!! Fuhatsudan

Scanned by me

[dollsorwhatever]

Mika

her dress is here, I still need to wash/starch/iron it and complete the outfit with undergarments and shoes but I had to try it on her. look at all those pintucks in her collar.....unbelievable (dress by Ecru Honoka and bought secondhand via mandarake)

[dollsorwhatever]

Jazzed up this Licca today~☆

Thought she needed a bit more Oomph in the color department. Terribly enamored with her now.

[dollsorwhatever]

Jennifer

This is a pretty rare variant of Jennifer and I ended up playing a game of chicken with the seller for two weeks before I caved and overpaid for her by a wide margin lol

At least she came in a beautifully (handmade I think) wedding gown to justify the cost a bit more. She also came with her original shoes! I'll put a Before and After here and leave the nerdy stuff below the cut lol

First thing I did when she arrived was wash her, straighten out her hair and set it into rollers.

And with her hair out of her face, I can more easily show what makes her so special compared to other Taiwan Jennifer dolls: she has Miss Long Hair's inner eyelashes!

(early Taiwan Jennifer with inner lashes vs later Taiwan Jennifer with no inner lashes)

This Jennifer is from the earliest batch of dolls made in Taiwan, which, unlike subsequent batches, have all of the facial details of Takara Miss Long Hair's face screening. Jennifer steadily loses more and more details of the original Miss Long Hair design through her production timeline, starting with the inner eyelashes. This batch with the full MLH face seems to have been a pretty small run, as the vast majority of Taiwan Jennifer dolls have no inner eyelashes.

There are other differences too; aside from the lashes, early Taiwan Jennifer has pinker/salmon lips and more saturated, heavier blue eyeshadow. Her torso and legs are also made of a much denser plastic than other Jennifers and they don't match her head and arms as closely as later Taiwan Jennifers. Early Taiwan Jennifer also has more pink to her skin, while Later Taiwan is more peachy. For reference, this is what Miss Long Hair's face looks like:

Both of these dolls represent the two major makeup variants of Miss Long Hair; the variant with a more subdued orange lip and blush, and the variant with highly saturated, bright orange blush and almost neon orange lips (my favorite lol) I feel like both Taiwan Jennifer variants take different bits and pieces from both MLH faces, but Early Taiwan makes the most of the original face to me- I'd even say she's prettier than MLH in some regards, especially the more saturated blue eyeshadow and more salmon pink lip!

Once her hair was done, I decided to swap her outfit with one of my other Jennifers and put her in my spare Long Hair Emily outfit, which I think suits her a lot more than it did the other girl!

And this Jennifer (and the wig I customized for her last month) was made to wear this wedding dress so it all worked out perfectly lol

And she fits in nicely with one of my other Jennifers, who is dressed in an original Miss Long Hair wedding dress!

Super in love with this doll and very glad I got my hands on her despite the cost! There are still a few Jennifer variants I'm missing (I don't have any of the Hong Kong variants for example) but I'm happy I have her!

[dollsorwhatever]

A Young Girl with her Doll, 1876 by Kate Perugini (English, 1839–1929)

[dollsorwhatever]

dropping hints that im a big fan of long hair

[dollsorwhatever]

Long Hair Emily (Takara, 1971)

Took me a little longer to get to fixing my Brunette Emily than the Blonde but it was worth the wait!

I really struggled with figuring out how to style this one because her rooting pattern is pretty wonky and her bangs were pretty annoying to shape, but in the end I went for this swept half-updo with a low ponytail.

She originally came in this outfit, but I chose to put her in this spare Emily dress instead since I think it matches her hair better.

[dollsorwhatever]

It looks even better once it's been washed and flat ironed lol

Wig (but long this time)

After my last customized wig failed to be long enough to work for my SD Mika, and after looking everywhere for super long synthetic mohair (doll grade kanekalon) wefts or even just a wig that I could extract wefts from and attach to my base wig, I realized that if I wanted super long hair, I would have to buy loose doll grade kanekalon and make the wefts myself with a sewing machine- a fact I had been dreading because I have never used a sewing machine in my life lol After a crash course on learning to use a sewing machine and watching a few tutorials, I went from this to this after a few tries:

What you don't see between these examples is the hour of near crying as I struggled to fold the hair in half to do the final stitches without it becoming a huge mess, until I found an extremely helpful tutorial that utilized a manila folder and a flat iron to fold and flatten the weft, something so obvious that I felt incredibly stupid for not having thought of it before then lol

Once I felt confident in my skills (and after more hair arrived because I stupidly used a bunch of it on my first attempts instead of using practice hair), I ended up making around 10-11 usable wefts in total from about five ounces of hair:

The color is a blend; the primary shade (This shade from Studiodollhair) is an exact match to the hair on the base wig I was using, and the secondary shade (from Dollyhair) is slightly paler and significantly longer.

I shuffled each hank separately to provide a nice tapered end (thanks to this tutorial by the same account as the wefting tutorial), and then combined them into two separate blends of slightly different color ratios to provide dimension, as well as a highly tapered layering to look like natural hair. My initial plan for this wig was about ankle length on my SD Mika (inspired by photos of women with super long hair in the 1800's) but eventually I chose to go as long as I feasibly could because why not lol Once I had my wefts finished, I stripped the base wig of 99% of its original hair (with the exception of the original hand tied parting and one weft at the base of the neck-again, for layering purposes) and stitched them on, mimicking the original layout of the wig, and then layered the remaining original hair to blend into the new wefts:

(Barbie for scale lol)

Very happy with it! By my estimation this wig is around 28", meaning it trails approximately 5" behind Mika when she's standing. I still need to wash and flat iron it (as well as clean, restring and dress Mika herself) but this project has been keeping me up at night for weeks so I am very happy to see it completed mostly, and I'm happy it motivated me to start learning to use a sewing machine! I look forward to playing with it more and dipping my toes into making doll clothes. A few years ago I would have abandoned this project out of fear, so I'm happy I saw it through to the end.

[dollsorwhatever]

Wig (but long this time)

After my last customized wig failed to be long enough to work for my SD Mika, and after looking everywhere for super long synthetic mohair (doll grade kanekalon) wefts or even just a wig that I could extract wefts from and attach to my base wig, I realized that if I wanted super long hair, I would have to buy loose doll grade kanekalon and make the wefts myself with a sewing machine- a fact I had been dreading because I have never used a sewing machine in my life lol After a crash course on learning to use a sewing machine and watching a few tutorials, I went from this to this after a few tries:

What you don't see between these examples is the hour of near crying as I struggled to fold the hair in half to do the final stitches without it becoming a huge mess, until I found an extremely helpful tutorial that utilized a manila folder and a flat iron to fold and flatten the weft, something so obvious that I felt incredibly stupid for not having thought of it before then lol

Once I felt confident in my skills (and after more hair arrived because I stupidly used a bunch of it on my first attempts instead of using practice hair), I ended up making around 10-11 usable wefts in total from about five ounces of hair:

The color is a blend; the primary shade (This shade from Studiodollhair) is an exact match to the hair on the base wig I was using, and the secondary shade (from Dollyhair) is slightly paler and significantly longer.

I shuffled each hank separately to provide a nice tapered end (thanks to this tutorial by the same account as the wefting tutorial), and then combined them into two separate blends of slightly different color ratios to provide dimension, as well as a highly tapered layering to look like natural hair. My initial plan for this wig was about ankle length on my SD Mika (inspired by photos of women with super long hair in the 1800's) but eventually I chose to go as long as I feasibly could because why not lol Once I had my wefts finished, I stripped the base wig of 99% of its original hair (with the exception of the original hand tied parting and one weft at the base of the neck-again, for layering purposes) and stitched them on, mimicking the original layout of the wig, and then layered the remaining original hair to blend into the new wefts:

(Barbie for scale lol)

Very happy with it! By my estimation this wig is around 28", meaning it trails approximately 5" behind Mika when she's standing. I still need to wash and flat iron it (as well as clean, restring and dress Mika herself) but this project has been keeping me up at night for weeks so I am very happy to see it completed mostly, and I'm happy it motivated me to start learning to use a sewing machine! I look forward to playing with it more and dipping my toes into making doll clothes. A few years ago I would have abandoned this project out of fear, so I'm happy I saw it through to the end.

[dollsorwhatever]

wig

This wig was originally intended for one of my SDs but it turned out to be too short for what I wanted for her, so it quickly became a wig for my Jennifers lol

It was originally shoulder length, but I ripped out about 60% of the original wefts and replaced them with much longer hair before I fully layered it to have more potential for 60s/70s restyling!

It looks pretty gorgeous to me on it's own, but I've been really into making hairpieces lately, so I decided to make one to accompany this wig using the frontal from another wig that I ripped out.

It's mostly intended to be a bang piece, but I layered it to have potential for a range of styles depending on whether I pin it forward or backward! When pinned forward, the layering blends in seamlessly with the base wig (with the addition of a set of bangs). When pinned backward, the bangs can be formed into a small beehive in the back and the longer hair covers the face framing layers on the base wig to make it look slightly less feathered.

(she is wearing a spare Takara Long Hair Emily fashion that I restored a few weeks back!) Super happy with this wig and hairpiece! My Jennifers spent a lot of time serving as my wig styling mannequins, but they now have their own growing collection of wigs and hairpieces and I can't wait to make the next one!

[dollsorwhatever]

Quick Curl Casey (1973)

Recently purchased this doll with the intent to reroot her, but I have fallen in love with her hair! She has the same type of hair as the normal Quick Curl Barbie doll line (saran hair mixed with colored wire), but Casey is 19" tall and uses the same body and head sculpt as the 1971 Best Friend Cynthia doll (who I also have and love lol) Surprisingly this is my first Quick Curl doll, but I have heard almost nothing but negative stories about it through my years of Barbie research so I didn't expect to love it...boy was I wrong lol This is just a handful of the styles I've done for her over the last two days that I remembered to photograph:

(She is wearing an Ideal Velvet fashion btw) The last style is the one I've settled on for now, I think it compliments the outfit well!

"Dollsorwhatever would slay quick curl hair" feels like a joke I would make about my tendency to love "difficult" hair types but here we are lol That's not to say it's perfect- it's very finicky to work with. You can't do a lot of shaping because it is so posable that the curl will come undone if you brush it even a little bit, and unless you do a really tight curl there are always going to be random hairs and wires sticking out in some places, and we all know from looking at used dolls that it has potential to get very tangled and damaged, but it's still very fun to play with! I really loved my dolls with memory hair as a child (especially Forever Hair Ariel) but this blows them out of the water. Saran memory hair is too weak to hold a shape for more than a few seconds, while this type of Quick Curl hair can hold its shape indefinitely. Definitely makes me less scared to buy some Quick Curl Barbie dolls! I've always had my eye on Kelley, maybe it's time to finally get her.

[dollsorwhatever]

Long Hair Emily (Takara, 1971)

After over a decade of wanting this elusive doll and a handful of times missing h er, I finally was able to grab one before she sold out from under me- and in her box, wearing her full outfit and shoes no less! Emily was released alongside her companion Hitomi in 1971, a year after Miss Long Hair was made. They use an updated version of Miss Long Hair's body with additional hip and waist articulation, and both Emily and Hitomi feature modified versions of Miss Long Hair's original head sculpt; Emily comes with a new screening and rooted lashes, and Hitomi comes with inset eyes. They both have the same grow-hair function of Miss Long Hair, but Emily is unique for having waist-length foundation hair with bangs while Hitomi comes with the same foundation hair style as Miss Long Hair (a shoulder length side part). Not the most intensive restoration process, but she still needed quite a bit of help; from de-yellowing her face and arms to filling in a gap in her rooted lashes, and de-staining her white blouse, along with a full cleaning and styling of course.

Keep an eye out on my Flickr account where I will be posting scans of her promo booklet, which I was also able to get my hands on!

I also have a brunette Emily still waiting to get styled- I was going to wait until I finished my brunette to post Emily on here, but I've been busy with other dolls so I haven't gotten to her yet lol She looks a bit like a young Debbie Reynolds to me, does anyone else see it?

[dollsorwhatever]

Do you have any tips for finding a Kenner Blythe for under 1k?

Your best bet is to join the facebook groups and to set new listing notifications on websites like Ebay, as well as things like estate sales and auctions! However I cannot help much further because I did not in fact follow that advice and put myself into a precarious financial state both times I've purchased a Kenner lol. Don't be like me

[dollsorwhatever]

Katherine Photo Dump

It only took nine months but my first Kenner is finally fully assembled and styled, and she is exactly the final product I was hoping for when I decided to make her my first Kenner Blythe, after all these years of wanting one!

She is wearing a dress from Lifetree1002 on Etsy that I purchased and saved especially for her to wear, and a braid hairpiece that I made to go with her doll grade kanekalon reroot (done by me and sugarx.free on Instagram!) Unfortunately I think my other Kenner hates her guts lol

Other than the reroot, her other modifications include a pelvic transplant (with a Neo pelvis adapted to fit Kenner legs), her eye mech spring has been replaced with a slightly-stretched Neo spring to give a heavy-lidded appearance and the T-bar in her eye mech was removed for easier eye maneuvering.

[dollsorwhatever]

Top: Original 1990s Sailor Moon anime

Bottom: Sailor Moon Crystal reboot anime

Settei (concept art) of the Moon Kingdom that displays both lunar geography and the city where regular denizens of the Silver Millennium lived. Usually all we see of the Moon Kingdom is the palace where the royal family and Inner Senshi lived, so it's really cool to see concept art of an actual city!

[dollsorwhatever]

hello! happy holidays :) hopefully this isn't too much of a question, but I recently unpacked my faerie queen LOI barbie after moving and her curly saran is matted and puffy at the ends. I tried combing it gently w a metal comb but that didn't help. I don't want to lose her in-box curls with a boil wash, but i'm not sure how to preserve curly saran and was wondering if you had tips for treatment! thank you :)

Hiya,

Let's see that hairstyle (prototype and real life)

Oof, complicated. First I'd try very gently dunking in near boiling water then remove, let it dry to try resetting the factory curls. Use a toothbrush to try and tame those frizzy ends while it's still warm. Maybe use some conditioner on those ends. It's a messy hairstyle that won't like being combed from the top!

Faerie Queen has two tiny barrel curls which would require the drinking straw or tiny perm rods with curling papers to make sure the ends are curled too. Possibly a tiny trim even after all that.

If dunking fails and you want a neat barrel curl, I'd straighten those front locks then curl wet hair with papers and tiny rods.

The back of her hair doesn't have to be barrel curls unless you want that specific look. You could have all straight, straight on top then add some curl to the base by heating wound hair locks with a hair iron on low (this is saran so no hotter than 120 Celcius) or a boiled water dunk. Or you could do loose bantu knots, boil, brush out for some wavey volume.

But that is going to look a little messy short of careful curling and lots of hair gel - these curly styles for display require barely touching the hair after styling, using tiny scissors to tidy loose hairs and copious hair spray.

Rodney rainbow on youtube has curl tutorials: https://m.youtube.com/@rodneyrainbow

And @dolljunk recently recurled his Glinda Barbie doll in a video tutorial.

Good luck and happy hols to you too 💚🌹

[dollsorwhatever]

Eden Photodump Apparently getting one Kenner Blythe in 2024 wasn't enough, I had to make it two lol (this one kept her original hair lol- albeit with about twelve hours of styling on top)